This invention relates to a transportable video apparatus which is usable outdoors, which provides protection to video components from theft and from environmental effects such as rain or snow and which allows viewing of a video image in bright sunlight without substantial loss of image brightness.
The need often arises for recording high speed or rapidly changing scenes so that the scene may be played back in slow or stopped motion in order to analyze the scene. Such motion analysis capabilities are for example, desirable in analyzing the motions of an athlete while engaged in an athletic event such as football, baseball, golfing or the like. Thus it may be desirable to capture the motion of a swinging golf club in order to correct a defect in the golfer's swing. Stop action may be used in football games in order to analyze the correctness of a referee's call on a play or to analyze the movements of a football player, such as those of a quarterback throwing a football to a receiver. Motion analysis systems are also useful in determining the overall athletic prowess of an athlete by determining how fast the athlete can run a 40-yard dash, for example. Other applications in which motion analysis is useful include the operation and fault analysis of machinery, crash testing of transportation systems, aerospace hardware testing and the like.
In such applications, it is desirable that the components of the motion analysis video system be stored in a transportable unit which provides environmental protection and resistance to theft of various expensive video components, while providing easy transportation of the video system to the sight of the event which is to be analyzed. It is desirable that the recorded event be played back at the sight without loss of image brightness caused by sunlight and environmental glare. It is also desirable that a portable motion analysis system be totally self-contained and provide easy accessibility to both the components of the analysis system and the controls therefor. It is also desirable that the motion analysis system be cost effective, simple in operation, rugged for use in adverse terrain, and include a self-contained power source.